5 Tips to Stay Focused on Your Work

This is a guest post by Shawn Lim. Shawn is the founder of Stunning Motivation. He’s been in the personal development industry for more than seven years and has helped countless hungry seekers achieve outstanding success in life. Learn more about him at StunningMotivation.com or follow him on Facebook.

If you want to produce outstanding work, there’s no way you can do it without 100% focus.

Most people get it wrong and think that as long as they get the work done, that’s it. But when it comes to results, all is not created equal. Some tasks give you better results than others.

The key to ultimate success is to focus on doing the 20% of work that will yield you 80% of the results. And this is what you are going to discover here: five tips that can boost your focus and help you get more quality work done.

Scheduling Fun Time

One of the keys to long-lasting motivation and focus on your work is to schedule for fun time. Yes, you read it right. You have to schedule fun time into your calendar.

This is because whenever you look at the calendar, and you see all work but no fun, what would you think? You want to allow yourself a little time to relax and have fun. You want to make your mind think that it’s worth working hard now, because your relaxation time is just around the corner.

InThe Now Habit, author Neil Fiore suggests that fun time be the first commitment you schedule into your calendar.

You don’t have to feel guilty for scheduling fun time into your work month or work week. Fun time is exactly what you need to maintain your motivation and productivity. The more fun time you have, the more creative you will be and the more productive you will become.

Time Blocking

This is another great technique to stay focused on your work. Whenever you need to work on a certain task, just time block it.

For example, if you are in sales and you need to make calls to your customers for one hour, then you can time block the task from 10am to 11am. During this hour, you will do nothing but call your customers.

You commit yourself to taking the action that you have time blocked. No distraction and no excuses until you get the work done or the time is up.

If you’re a blogger, and you need to write a post each day, just time block this task. Block the time for writing and never let anyone else distract you during this time. You know that you are working on your most important task, and you should protect this holy hour that will give you the most result.

Commitment is the key to making your time blocking work. And this productivity technique is powerful because it focuses on getting your work done without any distraction.

Take Breaks

Our level of focus decreases like our willpower. The more we use our willpower to focus on a certain task over a long period, the more our focus drops. We get distracted more easily.

Imagine that you’re working on your computer; do you think you can be fully focused after three straight hours? The answer is likely no. You’ll start to surf the internet, get distracted, and want to do other things.

How you schedule your break is up to you, but don’t over work and don’t take a long break that makes you procrastinate on your work.

If you follow this technique, you’ll see that after every short break, you’ll feel refreshed and ready to take on your work again. This is why Thomas Edison took short naps in his laboratory: to regain his focus, energy, and motivation for his inventions.

Can you imagine reading in a noisy place? Some people love going to a coffee shop to work, but sometimes the environment is just not suitable. It’s impossible to produce world-class work if the environment isn’t helping you.

This is why big, creative companies like Google and Apple have enticing offices for their staffs. They know that if the office environment is supporting their staffs, their staffs will be more productive and able to stay focused on their work better.

It’s no wonder these are the companies that become market leaders and change their industries. They know how to make their staffs productive and able to focus on their work.

If your work station isn’t supporting you, it’s time to change it. Things you can improve include your office chair or table, lighting, the overall temperature, etc.

Make it fun and exciting, so that you’ll want to work there. You’ll improve your focus and work more productively.

Make It a Habit

Finally, you can learn to make focusing a habit.

If you’re a writer, sometimes it will be difficult for you to stay focused on your work and write masterpieces. What you can do is make a habit of staying focused. For instance, say you start your work at 9am each day. To make it a habit, you should start writing at 9am each morning, at the same place and the same time.

Once you’ve done this for a certain amount of time, it will eventually become your habit, and you’ll have no problem staying focused on your work. At 9am, your brain will know that you need to write, and it will automatically focus you.

Success is all about adopting the right habits to become more productive. Most people are not successful, because they do not possess the productive habits of getting things done.

Therefore, never underestimate the power of building a focused and productive habit. Your habit will either build you or break you.

Conclusion

There are many tips for staying focused on your work. The five tips above are a good start. You don’t have to implement all of them at the same time. Instead, choose one and get started.

Remember, schedule fun time into your calendar, time block your work, take short breaks from time to time, build a supporting environment, and make it your habit to stay focused.

This is a guest post by Shawn Lim. Shawn is the founder of Stunning Motivation. He’s been in the personal development industry for more than seven years and has helped countless hungry seekers achieve outstanding success in life. Learn more about him at StunningMotivation.com or follow him on Facebook.